Talk about giving the gift of life. A woman who agreed to be surrogate mother for a couple who couldn't conceive on their own -- gives birth to quintuplets. Officials with Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center say the five boys named Enrique, Gabriel, Jorge, Javier, and Victor are doing well, though one child will require surgery to repair a heart defect. Surrogate Teresa Anderson is also in good health. The babies were delivered by Caesarean section a week earlier than planned after about 33-weeks. The 25-year old Anderson already has two children with her husband, Jared. She has also given birth to two other babies who were given up for adoption. Initially, Anderson agreed to become a surrogate for $15,000. But after finding out about the quintuplets, she decided to do it for free, citing the expenses new parents, Luisa Gonzalez and Enrique Moreno, would face. Doctors implanted five embryos to increase the chances at least one would be successful. Anderson's obstetrician is unaware of any other surrogate mother carrying quintuplets

A therapy that promises to melt fat away with the help of a syringe has not yet been proven a safe and effective alternative to liposuction, according to a new report. The report, by a committee of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), points to a lack of research data and standardized techniques for the treatment, known as mesotherapy. Mesotherapy breaks down pockets of fat that dwell anywhere from the jaw line to the waistline to the hips. It involves a series of injections into the problem area, with the ingredients of those injections varying from case to case. A mixture of various drugs, plant extracts and other substances may be used. One of the most common ingredients is phosphatidylcholine, or lecithin - a waxy substance found in the cells of plants and animals. Lecithin is added to food and other products as an emulsifier, which means it helps mix fats with liquid. The product may act similarly when used in mesotherapy, emulsifying body fat and allowing natural enzymes to break it down. But whether and how mesotherapy works is still unclear, according to the ASPS report. Other important questions, including the possible effects of the procedure on the liver and other organs, remain unanswered, the authors report in the journal Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. Mesotherapy is also expensive, with charges as high as $1,500 per treated area and practitioners generally recommend three to six rounds of injections over time. Research is ongoing and has shown slight promise in its results equaling that of current liposuction procedures. The main question mark is whether or not mesotherapy has long-term success. The procedure is called mesotherapy because injections are made into the mesoderm, the layer of fat and connective tissue under the skin. The method was developed by a French physician in the 1950s for the treatment of disorders of the blood vessels and lymphatic system. More recently, it has become a popular non-surgical alternative to liposuction in Europe and South America. Advocates say mesotherapy is far safer than the surgery, which, like all invasive procedures, carries some serious risks-including infection, blood clotting and, rarely, death. A major gap with mesotherapy, however, is the lack of standardization in the formulations and dosages used, and of guidelines stating, for instance, which patients are good candidates. It's also unclear where the body fat ends up after it's purportedly melted by mesotherapy. In the U.S., the individual components used in mesotherapy must be approved by the Food and Drug Administration, but their use in the context of mesotherapy has not been shown safe and effective. And the FDA has never approved a drug specifically for the body-contouring procedure

Stanford, California (AHN)- U.S. and Dutch researchers found distinct "healing" gene patterns, which they believe could reflect how aggressive a breast tumor is likely to be. Genes may help predict breast cancer patients' long-term health. But they said more research was needed to see if the find would aid treatment. Cancer charities echoed this caution about the study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Patrick Brown, from Stanford University, working with a team at the Netherlands Cancer Institute, followed what happened to 295 patients with early breast cancer up to 12 years after surgery for their tumors. They also analyzed each patient's tumor to see what gene pattern it had - which genes were active and which were not. Some of the patients' cancers had gene patterns similar to those seen in wounds during healing. These included genes involved with new blood vessel growth. When the researchers compared these patterns with the patients' outcomes they found those patients who fared the worst had similar gene patterns

London, UK (AHN)- A study of 456 patients found high levels of vitamin D - from sun exposure and food supplements - had a positive impact on the success of surgery. According to a US study, Lung cancer patients who have surgery in the winter are 40% more likely to die of the disease than those operated on in the summer. Lead researcher Wei Zhou said: "This study in no way suggests that people should try to time their cancer surgeries for a particular season - that would obviously be impossible. "But if validated it may mean that increasing a patient's use of vitamin D before such surgery could offer a survival benefit." Looking at the effect of the seasons, the team found patients who had operations in the winter were 40% more likely to die from their cancer than those who had the operation in the summer. Dr. Kat Arney, science information officer at Cancer Research UK, said more research was needed to see if increasing the levels of vitamin D before surgery would be beneficial

Two studies assessing the long-term safety of treating young children's chronic ear infections by implanting ventilation tubes generally confirm the treatment. With an average of 14 years after 237 children received the tubes, initially under the age of two, their hearing was greatly normal, reported Hannu Valtonen, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues at the Kuopio University Hospital here in the April issue of the Archives of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery. Of the 177 ears that completely healed, the average hearing level was as small as 4.3 decibels, meaning they can hear very faint sounds. The average among all ears treated was 5.8 decibels. Only 5.5% of the 237 children had a hearing level worse than 15 decibels; a hearing level of less than or equal to 15 decibels is considered normal "Our long-term results show that from the hearing point of view early tympanostomy tube insertion is justified and should not be unnecessarily delayed if conservative treatment fails," the researchers concluded. "Most of the hearing loss in the present series was minor and related to unsuccessful otological outcomes, not to the tympanostomy tube insertion." In a second study, the researchers performed a check up on the children to see if their ears had healed and if there were any negative conclusions. They examined medical records and seeked any information of repeat procedures or more intense surgeries. Indeed the healing process is slow, with the majority of ears (74.7%) healing at 14 years, compared to 65.8% when they were examined five years after surgery. Additionally the number of negative conclusions decreased from 34.2% at five years to 25.3% at 14 years. "We recommend early VT therapy as the treatment of choice in young children with persistent OME [otitis media with effusion] or RAOM [recurrent acute otitis media]," the researchers concluded. "However, before institution of therapy, parents should be informed of the possible need for repeated ventilation tube insertion, of the long follow-up, and of potential sequelae, especially tympanostomy perforations, that sometimes necessitate surgical intervention," the scientists added. The researchers also found that if the ear completely healed after just five years it "almost invariably" remained healed